Sunday, April 29, 2007

Oh, and for those of you who missed 52...

Here is the new image of the Justice League's very first adventure:

I'm sure its no surprise by Saturday, but I've only see it mentioned on 52 Pick-Up so far. That's weird. I figured I'd see more rejoicing at this. I mean, it fixes Diana's spot in the universe without robbing Dinah of hers. We still have the JSA generational connection in the JLA founders. And best of all the two characters are no longer treated as interchangeable based on gender.

Of course, this means its just a matter of time before we see another JLA: Year One story, probably in JLA: Classified. That could be a blessing or a curse based on who they hire to do it.

8 comments:

Of the options, Diana in addition to Dinah is better than Diana INSTEAD of Dinah, and I don't think we need a new JLA: YEAR ONE. The origin seems to imply that Wonder Woman's "founder" status is like Batman and Superman's, which was basically a few panels to say "Yeah, a League. That's cool. But I'm really busy. Give me a call if you need me." Which coulda just happened off-panel.

I don't get the fascination with making Wonder Woman a League founder, especially since the cost of that is throwing out George Perez's run.

The reason why it's important to some of us that Diana is a founder is because basically Perez retconned her as a newbie.

Pre-crisis Diana was as experienced and had equal seniority to Superman and Batman, post-crisis, she's suddenly "the new character", which made things particularly awkward because of the existence of Donna Troy. (Suddenly we have a Wonder Girl whose career predates Wonder Woman!). Considering how otherwise the narrative tries to convince us that Diana, Bruce and Clark are equals, the fact that the other two had half a decade of experience on her really did taint that.

Besides, it doesn't necessarily need to retcon the Perez run at all. All it does is set the Perez run a few years earlier. Some of the crossover elements would need reworking, but they weren't terribly common in that run anyway. Everything else can stand as is, with the only real alteration being that if Vanessa Kapitelis shows up as the Silver Swan again, she'll be about twenty-two instead of seventeen. Diana herself is unaging, so it really doesn't matter if she's twenty-five or thirty.

That makes a lot of sense; thanks! This may be the wrong site to say it on, but I personally don't think Wonder Woman is or should be considered equal in the DCU to Superman and Batman.

The whole "Trinity" idea is extremely forced, and not backed up by anything other than the fact that her book has never been cancelled for 60 years. But then, it's only one book.

How many monthlies has Wonder Woman carried? How many graphic novels does she have? How long did it take DC to get around to putting out a "Greast Stories Ever Told," or a "Showcase Presents"? In the DCU, we're told she's equal, but DC's publishing history says the opposite.

I can see how the "newbie" status is grating, but once you remove her from WWII, Wonder Woman starts to fall apart anyway (at least as originally envisioned). She was very much a young woman and maiden back in the day, wheras Superman and Batman are and always were super-dads.

As to Wonder Girl pre-dating Diana, Donna's whole existence is a continuity error, isn't it? I thought Wonder Girl was Diana as a girl (like Superboy), but she accidentally got put into Teen Titans, so Donna was created to explain it?

I'm just saying for posterity's sake that you're totally wrong about everything in your last comment, Caleb.

I find Wonder Woman just as iconic and important as Superman and Batman. I'd be willing to bet if you asked random people off the street to name superheroes, if they were unfamiliar with comics they would come up with 3 DC heroes -- Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman -- amidst and an assorted handful of Marvel heroes.

Hell, ask anyone on the street to name a female superhero. See what name comes up most often.

For myself, I have to admit that I just didn't notice Black Canary in this spread until you pointed her out.

I mean, the retcon works for me. As you say, Wonder Woman is one of a small handful of characters the non-comic-buying public knows, and her seniority is a treasure not to be lightly discarded. And newbie Black Canary alongside newbie Flash and newbie Green Lantern just makes a lot of sense in the post-Crisis world.

I'd argue that, to some extent, they're the Trinity because Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman all had a TV series before the rise of cable, when more of the audience would have watched. (As opposed to, say, the relatively obscure post-cable Flash show, or Birds of Prey).

There were plenty of other places Wonder Woman showed up before the TV series, but the fact that they built a show around her suggests she had significant mindshare at the time.

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